As millions across the country celebrate Pride Month, two related studies have found that Asian Americans who are gay are considered more American than those who are straight, reports Futurity.
Due to stereotypes, Asian Americans are looked at as perpetual foreigners. The studies found being gay seems to diminish that.
“American culture is perceived as more accepting of gay people compared to Asian cultures,” writes a University of Washington research team led by Sapna Cheryan and Mika Semrow, according to Pacific Standard Magazine. “As a result, gay Asian Americans are perceived as more likely to be American than their straight counterparts.”
In the first study, a man named John was identified as either a gay Asian American man or Asian American man. Participants were asked to rate how American John is through questions such as “How fluently do you think this person speaks English?” and “How integrated is this person in American culture?”
In the second study, similar questions were used, but included a variety of fictional people with names popular in the United States in the 80’s. Once again, Asian Americans identified as gay were scored as more American than those who were not identified as gay. There was no perceived difference in score for those identified as White, gay or not.
“These studies demonstrate once again the widely-held assumption that Whites are the most American. Though being gay increased perceptions of Asian Americans’ ‘Americanness,’ it was still not nearly enough to close the gap in perceptions between Asian Americans and Whites,” says Linda Zou, a graduate student and study coauthor, said to The Futurist.
Cheryan pointed out that the study does not mean LGBTQ Asian Americans face less discrimination. Though gay AAPIs may be perceived as less foreign, she says it doesn’t protect against other forms of discrimination and harassment.
“One possible extension of this work is that gay Asian Americans may be less likely to have their American identities questioned than straight Asian Americans,” said Cheryan to the University of Washington. “At the same time, being gay puts people more at risk for other forms of prejudice based on sexual orientation.”
The study from the University of Washington is published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.
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